Image and text skewing / distorting megathread

[Jonopen]

Seems to me underhand and disrespectful to remove a basic long standing feature without mentioning it, then attempt to justify the decision with a weak argument. Surly it's a fundamental (vector application) expectation that unlocking the aspect ratio padlock allows you to distort whatever is selected, including (and especially) text!

[handrawn]

bitmap textures - love 'em, they are so much more soft and cuddly than hard nose glossy vector.... ok hard nose is good too in it's place... anyway, here's an example for making an overlay..

again it is a simple illustration..



texture squishing.xar

[handrawn]

ok the project is live and ongoing but I got permission to do this

here is a path - a road of sorts wending it's way through a retro-psycho seashore in the air reminiscent of some age old progressive rock band album sleeve.... maybe



I created this in Xara using mehdi vibrations and wave live effects and some careful putting together of both vector and bitmap - its a complex object

but it needs to be squished, because it needs to be seen in various different aspects eg:



oh look - a seahorse... maybe

or:



bit more work and some wings could be a stork... maybe

the point is, whilst working on this I need to squish the complex group, so I can see what still needs work for it's specific manifestation in the animation.. no good squishing a bitmap copy - I need a clone of the object so once squished I can work on it directly.. this is a whole world away from putting up photos in HTML

Rob I'm sorry, I can't post a xar of this - you know how it is... but I hope it helps

[angelize]

you have posted some good examples handrawn.

Egg the video is also good!

to anyone else who posted examples that I missed keep posting examples!

it's great to see all these examples! here are some more from me these are some actual senarios I've come across doing advertising layout and design. Advertisers often want the sun and the moon crammed into the smallest space, but make it readable! here are two quick fixes using squashing one for text and one for images.

[Acorn]

Thanks for the Rally Call angelize.

Here is an example the clearly demonstrate the differences in using V12 over V15:

About Face.xar

The problem is in V12 I knew what I wanted and in V15 I still don't know how to achieve the same.

Acorn

[handrawn]

Thanks Frances

can't see a way either Acorn

regarding the example about overlay I posted - I want to emphasise there is a good reason for making a 3 clone group in the overlay example - grouped because, whilst the asset is being created, they need to be locked ... the more complicated the overall object the more likely something will be misplaced - cloned because down the line they will be animated separately eg in terms of colour and effect [eg blur] - getting the position right upfront is paramount and we are usually looking at much more complicated shapes [not all the same] and more of them

[gwpriester]

Using Acorn's example. A simple child's block with some additional text is easy in 12, just using the non-proportional resizing and skewing. In 15 using the same method the text has moved up on the square shape (note the distance of the ABC from the top) and the only way to fit the paragraph text is to use a mould, perspective envelope.

Again, especially in a "vector drawing program" the designer should be able to do what she/he wants in the same way that he or she can do it in other vector drawing programs. But I am flogging a dead horse here.

[Acorn]

This time I tried a soft-group of Text, with a Box, a Star and an Image.

I then applied Auto-fit to page to the objects to alter on Width.
On changing the page to A4h from A4v so the width increases from 210 to 297 mm and the height remained the same:

• The box went from 142 x 110 px to 200.8 x 77.6 px. The Box height changed despite no page height change. The Area was maintained.
• The Textbox did the same. It forced an overflow.
• The Image did the same (i.e., same Area). The DPI halved. The W&H of the uncropped image shot up to 139.5 mm from the original 67.7 mm. The crop was taken from the centre of the uncropped image.
• The Smart Shape Star remained unchanged as does a Shaped version of it.

I now have a V15 toolset that is unusable as it is unpredictable in its choice of operation.

V15 AutoFit to Page.xar

Acorn

[handrawn]

soft grouping - looking at it as we speak...

[gwpriester]

I now have a V15 toolset that is unusable as it is unpredictable in its choice of operation.

So Xara has made it easier for new users?